


A different sort of magic

by Knitchick1979



Category: Kamen Rider W (Double)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Highlander References, Torchwood References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 22:12:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5760844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knitchick1979/pseuds/Knitchick1979
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shotarou realizes he is going to need a way to carry the driver belt and Gaia memories around with him now that he is one half of Kamen Rider W. References to Highlander and Torchwood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A different sort of magic

Shotarou woke up the next morning, thinking back over the events of the day before and wondering if he'd dreamed it all. The mysterious boy, Boss getting shot, that strange transformation….

He rolled over on his side and saw the three Gaia memories sitting on his bedside table. When they'd escaped the facility and gotten back to the Detective Agency, the boy...Philip, the Boss had called him, had handed him three memories. Joker, Metal, and Trigger. Joker he had selected himself, when Philip had asked if he was willing to ride with the Devil. Philip had decided the other two should be his as well, while taking Cyclone, Heat, and Luna for himself.

Shotarou sat up in bed. No, it wasn't a dream. Things were going to really change from this point on. It almost seemed overwhelming, thinking about everything he had to do. But first, he thought, maybe a little retail therapy. The Boss had given him his hat, so that meant Shotarou could finally go pick up the Windscale fedora he'd had his eye on for months.

  


Shotarou left Philip still sleeping in the basement of the office. He'd written a short note on the whiteboard explaining where he was going and left the second Stagphone in case Philip needed to reach him. Not knowing how else to keep them on him, he stuffed the three memories and the mysterious belt they went in into his school satchel, along with his Stagphone. First stop, Windscale.

Shotarou filled his basket with merchandise. Three hats, a basic wool fedora for everyday, a sharp grey plaid one for a change, and a summer weight white one for the days Fuuto got to be boiling hot. He grabbed a few pairs of black jeans, since it probably wouldn't be appropriate for him to keep wearing his short school uniform pants anymore. Not that he was now the boss, technically. A few different dress shirts, and then white, black, and grey ties joined them. He was about to check out when some new shirts and parkas caught his attention. Not his style, but maybe Philip would like them. He grabbed a yellow and white shirt and a grey-blue parka. As he headed toward the register, one last item made its way into his basket - a nice simple Windscale brand pinky ring that Shotarou had been thinking of buying for ages. This was as good an occasion as any.

"Hidari-san, get a new job?" the clerk asked as he rung up the basketful of clothes.

"You could say that, Kirito-san. I'm taking over the detective agency," Shotarou said.

"Add this to your account?" 

Shotarou tried to not blush. He always felt embarrassed using the family line of credit. But it wasn't like the Boss had left him much money. The Boss had never even really paid him, actually. "Sure, thank you."

The bag of clothes weighed heavily on Shotarou as he left the shop, sporting one of the hats as he wandered aimlessly through Fuuto's shopping district. His next concern was how to carry the driver and memories without it being obvious...or cumbersome. As a detective, he sometimes needed to be able to move quickly. But he couldn't just wear the belt all the time, it was too weird.

"You look like a man with a problem," said a man, stepping out of the shadows. He wore a long trenchcoat and a wide-brimmed fedora pulled low over his eyes.

"Who are you?" Shotarou asked.

"A simple tailor. Well, perhaps not so simple," the man said. "You have a weapon of sorts in your bag and you are trying to think of a way to carry it without the bag, no?"

Shotarou gaped at the man. "How….how do you know?"

"Instinct, honed over many centuries. Come, my office is nearby. I can help you."

  


Shotarou sat in the dimly-lit office, wondering again why he had chosen to follow the man. It went against all his instincts as a detective...but somehow he felt the man could be trusted.

"I am known as Cesar," the man said, sitting down across from Shotarou and setting down two coffee cups. "I have been a tailor to heroes for hundreds of years."

Shotarou tried to suppress a laugh. "Hundreds? You barely look older than me!"

"The gift of immortality. I was killed at the age of 25 and I have not aged since," Cesar said. "And your name, detective?"

"Hidari Shotarou. How did you know I was a detective?"

Cesar shrugged. "Instinct, I suppose. Now, may I see the weapon you have in your satchel?"

Shotarou reached for his bag that was sitting on the floor beside him. "It's not really a weapon…" He pulled out the driver belt and the three memories and placed them on the small table. 

"It lets you fight the bad guys, does it not?" When Shotarou nodded, Cesar continued, "Then it counts as a weapon. This lets you transform into a fighter. And you need to carry this on you at all times." Shotarou nodded again. "What clothes did you pick up today? What do I have to work with?"

Shotarou pulled a black waistcoat out of his shopping bag. "I bought a few of these, but there's really nowhere to put the belt. The memories maybe…"

"You would be amazed, young man," Cesar said. He put the driver back down on the table and stood up. Slowly, he slid a large Roman broadsword out of a pocket on the inside of the bomber jacket he was wearing. "I specialize in hidden pockets that can hold more than one expects."

  


An hour later Shotarou was walking back toward the Detective Agency, with plans to order in Fuumen for a late lunch. He'd left the waistcoats he picked up with the mysterious Cesar so the man could add magic pockets to them. Shotarou didn't really believe that Cesar could make a pocket to hide his driver belt in a waistcoat, but he figured at least if he had pockets for the memories that would help. 

He walked into the office to find Philip sitting at his desk with a large black leather-bound book in his hands. He looked up from the book when Shotarou walked in and grinned. 

"Welcome back, Shotarou, did you have a good time shopping?"

"I did," Shotarou said, setting the shopping bag down. "I bought something for you as well."

"For me?" Philip asked. He closed the book with a snap and practically ran around the desk to peer into the bag. Shotarou playfully swatted him away and dug out the shirt, parka, trousers, and boots he had bought for his new partner. "Very colorful!" Philip declared, and immediately began to change right in the middle of the office, stripping out of his dirty white pajamas that he'd been rescued in and pulling on the new clothes Shotarou had picked out.

"Ah mou, there's a bathroom for that!" Shotarou protested. He didn't stop the younger boy, though. It's not like there were any clients to be had right now. 

"Thank you Shotarou, I love this!" Philip said, twirling around and letting the parka swirl around his knees. "Can I have more like this?"

Shotarou smiled. "Well, now that I know those fit and you like them, yes, I'll get you some more."

Just then, Philip's stomach started grumbling. "After lunch?"

Shotarou laughed. "I'll shop tomorrow. For now, time to order Fuumen!" He pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial number for his favorite restaurant. 

  


The next morning, Shotarou woke up early. He looked across the office and saw Philip still curled up in the leather chair where he had been engrossed in his book the night before. The book had fallen to the floor and Philip was sound asleep. Shotarou pulled a spare blanket from the drawer and draped it over his partner. 

After his morning coffee, Shotarou set out toward the shopping district again. He arrived at the Windscale store just as they opened, and made a beeline right for what he needed - shirts, trousers, and parkas for Philip. He grabbed a variety, and added a second pair of boots to the pile as an afterthought.

A different clerk was working, one who didn't recognize him from school. "How will you be paying for this, sir?"

"Just add it to my account, under Hidari," Shotarou said. 

The clerk searched her computer. "Hmm. Do you have identification, Hidari-san?" she asked. Shotarou dug in his wallet and pulled out his school ID, not willing to share his driving license. The clerk shot him a glare but finished the transaction. "You are all set, sir." She bagged the clothes and Shotarou high-tailed it from the store before she decided to say more.

Checking his watch, he headed for the small out of the way office that Cesar had brought him to the day before, but found it seemingly abandoned. There was a note, though, with his name on it. 

"Your tailoring is nearly done, I will bring it to your office this afternoon. ~Cesar"

Shotarou pocketed the note and headed back toward the Detective Agency.

  


The rest of the morning was spent setting up a place for Philip to keep his new wardrobe, which involved packing some of the Boss's things into a box and tucking it away in the garage. They cleaned up the small bathroom and closet area off the back corner of the office, and split the big wardrobe in half - Shotarou's dress shirts, jeans, and a small rack of ties on the left side, Philip's shirts, parkas, and trousers on the right. They were just finishing changing the sheets on the small bed tucked in the corner when the doorbell rang.

Philip ducked into the basement and Shotarou ran to the door. Cesar was standing there with a garment bag in his hand. 

"Ah, Cesar, come in," Shotarou said. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, but thank you. I can't stay long. But the work is finished. Where is your weapon? I want to make sure the pockets work before I leave." He walked over to the ladder next to Shotarou's desk and hung the garment bag, unzipping it. 

Shotarou followed him, stepping behind the desk and pulling the driver from the drawer where he'd secreted it. He laid the driver and memories on the desk. 

Cesar pulled the black waistcoat out of the garment bag. "Here, put it on." Once Shotarou had slipped it on, Cesar grabbed the Joker memory and slid it into a small pocket on the left side of the waistcoat that almost completely blended into the Windscale-branded lining. "There's three pockets here for your memories," Cesar pointed out. He then picked up the driver and turned to the right side of the waistcoat. "Now here's the fun one. See that small white line? Run your finger along it."

Shotarou did as Cesar had said and a generous pocket opened in the waistcoat. Cesar dropped the driver in and it vanished. "Waaaaa? How?"

"A little bit of magic," Cesar said. "It's how I can fit a long broadsword in a short jacket. It's a special dimension. Run your finger across the line again to seal the pocket. Whenever you need your driver, it will be right there. And the best part is, you don't need to move the driver between waistcoats. All of your waistcoats access the same pocket. The memories you'll have to put in the one you're wearing." He turned back to the garment bag and pulled it away from the contents. Shotarou noticed there were two coats sitting behind the waistcoats. "I took the liberty of picking up a winter coat and a fall/spring jacket for you and adding the pockets to those." 

Shotarou plucked the warm puffy winter coat from the garment bag and tried it on. It fit him perfectly. He looked on the inside and saw the white line indicating the magic pocket. He slid his finger along it, and then reached into the opened pocket. His fingers immediately found the driver, sitting right inside. He pulled it out and marveled at the mysterious pocket. "That's amazing! Thank …… you?"

Somehow in the mere minute Shotarou had taken to put the coat on and test the pocket, Cesar had disappeared. Shotarou looked over at the table and spotted a lone business card sitting there, with a handwritten note. The business card read "Cesar's hero tailoring" while the note read, "Thank you for your business. Contact me anytime for your magical tailoring needs."

Shotarou smiled. He tucked the other waistcoats away in the wardrobe, hung the coats in the coat closet, and headed downstairs. He had promised Philip they would work on making the garage area habitable for him to use as a workshop and hidey-hole. But first, it was lunchtime.

  


Meanwhile, across Fuuto, Cesar's phone rang. "Ah, Captain Harkness, destroyed another coat have we? I am in Japan right now but I will book the first flight to Torchwood that I can find."

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely my best friend TheatreGirl79's fault. I was telling her this weekend how much I was looking forward to getting my official Premium Bandai Windscale waistcoat, because I wanted to see if it really had pockets for the Gaia memories like the one in the show. And she made the suggestion that Shotarou went to the same tailor as immortals and Captain Jack Harkness. The plot bunny wouldn't let go!
> 
> Not beta'd and probably very AU (there's no indications in the show that Shotarou comes from money...but really, how else would he have gone from wearing his school uniform blazer and shorts to his coordinated Windscale dress shirts, ties, and waistcoats?)


End file.
